The
rapidly expanding adoption of mobile couponing is poised to become a
major challenge to one of the most profitable and important revenue
streams remaining for newspapers: preprint advertising circulars.

The good
news for publishers at the moment is that newspapers carry 90% of
the printed coupons issued annually by consumer-products companies in
the United States, according to a mid-2012 survey by
NCH Marketing Services, a division of the Valassis direct-mail company
that serves as a clearinghouse for many of the billions of coupons
redeemed every year. NCH says 305 billion coupons were issued in 2012.